Recent blog posts

I wrote a comic book about prison. Let me explain why.

The court of appeals last year vacated Sandra Brice’s conviction for habitual misdemeanor larceny for stealing five packs of steaks valued at $70 from a Food Lion in Hickory. The reason? The indictment alleged the steak theft and Brice’s four prior convictions for misdemeanor larceny in a single count. That violated a statutory rule requiring that prior convictions be alleged in a separate count, and, in the court of appeals’ view, deprived the superior court of jurisdiction to enter judgment against Brice for habitual misdemeanor larceny, a felony offense. Earlier this month, the North Carolina Supreme Court reversed the court of appeals and remanded the case for reinstatement of the trial court’s judgment. Read on to find out why.

This question in the title of this post came up in a recent class. The specific context involved a domestic violence defendant who was in jail waiting for a judge to set conditions of release pursuant to the 48 hour rule established in G.S. 15A-534.1. But a similar issue arises whenever a magistrate sets conditions of release for a defendant who is unable to make bond and so remains in pretrial detention. An example of a common condition is that the defendant not contact the alleged victim.

For the second time in a month, the leading criminal law news in our country is a staggeringly tragic mass shooting.  The Las Vegas shooting in early October was the deadliest mass shooting in modern American history, and the shooting this week at a church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, where 26 people were killed and 20 others injured, is the deadliest shooting by an individual in Texas history. News reports say that roughly half of the victims were children; one family lost members from three generations.  The Dallas Morning News has profiles of the victims here.  Keep reading for more news.

Two new sentencing enhancements related to gangs will come into effect for offenses committed on or after December 1, 2017.

Yesterday was opinion day at the court of appeals. And while it wasn’t officially designated as DWI opinion day, several of yesterday’s opinions resolve significant and recurring issues in DWI litigation. Today’s post will cover the highlights.

I am excited to announce the release of the 2017 edition of our manual, specific to North Carolina law and practice, on the immigration consequences of a criminal conviction. We hope that this online manual, which can be viewed at no charge, will be a useful resource in understanding this challenging area of law.

In 2015, the Supreme Court of the United States decided Rodriguez v. United States, 575 U.S. __, 135 S. Ct. 1609 (2015). Rodriguez held that it was improper for an officer to extend a traffic stop for several minutes in order to conduct a dog sniff of the stopped vehicle. More generally, the decision requires an officer to pursue the “mission” of a traffic stop diligently, without measurably extending the duration of the stop for investigative activity unrelated to the purpose of the stop.

Our court of appeals has issued several decisions under Rodriguez, including some in defendants’ favor. Everyone has been waiting for those cases to make their way to the state supreme court. Now one has, and it turns out that the supreme court’s understanding of Rodriguez differs considerably from the view adopted by at least some panels of the court of appeals.

The case in question is State v. Bullock, __ N.C. __, __ S.E.2d __, 2017 WL 5017435 (2017), and this post explores it further.

On Tuesday, Sayfullo Saipov killed eight people and injured twelve others by driving a truck down a bike lane in Manhattan in an apparent terror attack.  It has been reported that Saipov, an immigrant from Uzbekistan, was inspired by Islamic State propaganda videos and closely followed instructions for committing such an attack published in an ISIS magazine last November.  The attack is the deadliest terror attack in New York City since the World Trade Center attacks on September 11, 2001.  Keep reading for more news.

Inmates do not forfeit the right to practice their religious faith while they are incarcerated. But of course that right is not unlimited. Officers can impose certain restrictions when an inmate’s religious practices would conflict with the institution’s legitimate interests in safety, security, and good order. There is a lot of case law about those restrictions, both as a constitutional matter under the First Amendment, and under a federal statute, the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000 (RLUIPA), 42 U.S.C. § 2000cc-1(a)(1)–(2)—which is even more protective of inmates’ rights than the Constitution.